Tears of the Fallen
Warning: Rated "Adult" for safety, due to dark themes and violence. There may also be some bad language. Don't like, don't read. Disclaimer: I don't own Dungeons and Dragons. Never have, never will. Tears of the Fallen Chapter One: Prologue (Lilith's POV) Pain. This is the feeling that describes me right now. This is what makes me who I am. Nothing else, but pain. There may have been small droplets of joy in my otherwise miserable excuse for a life, but even these are hidden away in a thick cloud of despair that I honestly don't expect to dissappear any time soon. Instead, there is only a chaotic and yet refined turmoil consisting of anger, sorrow and bitterness, as well as that deepening, opressive sense of helplessness that constantly seems to be hovering everywhere around me. It's simply a pain so great, no words will ever be able to describe it. The pain of loss and betrayal. I feel so dead and empty inside. Nothing make sense to me anymore. It is as if life itself have lost it's glorious meaning. After all, if someone is living a life filled with bloodshed and tragedy, then that particular someone must either be a very unhappy person, or just plain sick in the head. It just so happens that I exist on recieving end of the line of said bloodshed and tragedy. Trust me, such a life can never be glorious. Instead, it only destroys you. Which is also one of the main reasons that I don't feel very happy at the moment, because truth be told, there is nothing to be happy about. Having just recently lost someone very dear to me, I hold no room for any sort of joyfulness. If someone else ever were to go through the same kind of event I have endured and survive it, then I doubt that person would have a good reason to feel cheerful about it. It's a terrible experience that I won't recommend. The only reason I'm still standing and walking, is because that's what they would have wanted. I just hope that wherever they are now, they will be fine. Hopefully, Zinomi, the Spirit of Death, will be kind enough to grant them peace and rest for showing a filthy anomaly of nature like me compassion, even in the face of death. They deserve that much. Why am I being so miserable and why do I keep talking about someone who are now dead and gone? Also, what is it that sets me so far apart from others that it would cause almost everyone else to both view and treat me with hatred and contempt? Where am I now, and where am I going? What am I planning to do? Do I have a specific goal, a destination? And if so, what is it and how am I going to reach it? Where do I come from and what am I doing right now? But more importantly...just who and what am I exactly? It's alot of questions, and not all of them can be answered. But I also got nothing left to lose, so I might as well explain. Now, where to start...right. I'll just begin with my identity, so to speak. To properly describe who and what I am is sort of a complicated task, to put it lightly. It's a sensitive subject and thus, it's also not something that I like to talk about often. I prefer to keep such private information a secret. And no, I'm not nameless. Don't worry. Because I do have a name. But it's also a name that I don't like. But I can't exactly hate it either. Why? Now that is even harder to answer. I was named after someone or something else. I don't precisely know who or what I got my birthname from. All I know, is that it was something bad. Something...hated. Something - or someone - who wasn't very well-liked. It's a simple name with an apparantly twisted history filled with half-truths and lies. It sounds hauntingly fitting and yet terribly misplaced at the same time. I can only imagine that whoever or whatever bore this name must be incredibly infamous. So what is my name? What do I call myself? My name...my name is...Lilith. Lilith Ziquaisol. And in case my name wasn't enough of a hint, I'm a girl. The reason I say "girl" and not "woman", is because I'm only fifteen years old. As a result, I don't considere myself a full grown adult. Not yet, at least. Five more years will likely have to pass before that happens. Until then, I'm merely a teenager. However, due to my rather...unique apparance, both my age and gender can be a somewhat daunting task to figure out, unless someone makes the very daring decision to look at me...ahem...down there. Not that I will ever allow anyone to do such a crazy thing with me, because that would be undeniably disgusting. And yes, I do have something called privacy. Sounds laughable? I'm sure it does. To those who knows no better, it might as well sound like a bad joke. But even these small signs of both personal identity as well as moral decency, have been misused as if to label me a so-called "symbol of evil." My name and body are merely the two despisable main acts of prejudices that I simply cannot forget and forgive, no matter how much I'm pleaded and begged to do so. The people who caused me all this misery was nothing but a bunch of Spirits-damned hypocrites. If anything, they were the ones who turned out to be the beings of pure evil, not me. Why? Why did they have to call me Lilith? Of all the possible names they could have chosen to give me, why this one? Why not give me a more ordinary name to go by, say, like Marina, Junika or Leila? Or maybe Lily or Shinomi? The possibilities are endless. One thing is for certain though; I don't like the name Lilith. It has a bad sound to it. But then again...I guess it can't really be helped. I mean, what is done, is done, and there's nothing that I can do about it, right? Absolutely nothing. I'll just have to live and deal with it the best way that I can. If not, then I might as well change my name. I just hope that nobody gets the chance to kill me first. Otherwise, I'm done for. But enough about this. You know who I am now. Now it's time to hear what I am. First of all, I'm not a Human. Or to be more specific, I was supposedly born by Humans and I also grew up among Humans. But I don't look anything like a normal Human. In fact, I don't even have a clue as to what I am myself. Most people I believe, would find it utterly and completely impossible for a strange-looking creature like me to be born from a Human lineage. My kind also bears no name, so far as I know. Ironic, isn't it? I have both a given name and a family name. But I have no species name. Or if I do have one, then I don't know anything about it. I am someone and yet I am no one. I don't belong anywhere and I got no one to identify myself with. To say my life is a mess, is a major understatement. But that's besides the point. I should explain what I am. So here it comes. Most of my body is entirely black. Not black, as in being a very dark shade of brown, but midnight black. Like the nightsky. My large eyes on the other hand glows a bright bluish-white color, with no readily apparant pupils. They are also entirely surrounded by clearly noticeable skyblue skinmarkings, giving me a distinctively nocturnal look. Despite this, my vision functions perfectly fine. I can even see in the darkness, which is a huge advantage on my part. But that's not the end of it. I stand 180 centimeters tall. Tall enough to that I may stand out in a crowd, but not so tall that I look huge. I'm somewhat muscular, though not to the extent that I look overly heavy. Instead, it grants me balanced strenght, speed and stamina. To put it simple, I look like the kind of deadly creature of the night who possesses the potential to strike my enemy repeatedly, be it both hard and fast, without anyone noticing. Not that I will ever do such a thing, unless I have a damn good reason to do it. I'd much rather run away, which should be easy enough. On my head, where there should have been hair, there is instead several long pointed things that I can freely move around on my own accord and which seems to be made of flesh and blood. I have no external ears and my nose is nothing else but two small nostrils at the size of dots. On my otherwise Human-like hands and fingeres are long sharp claws with the same color as my eyes. My feet are likewise clawed and have five digits. Both of my hands and feet are also webbed, which is something I find very useful when in deep water. My head is somewhat elongolated, kind of like a lizard's or a bird's and with promient jaws, both of which are filled with long, razor-sharp teeth that are most often invisible, as long as I just make sure to keep my mouth shut when neccessary. I usually stand and walk upright, but sometimes I feel the strange urge to crouch down on all fours instead. Sometimes I decide to actually walk around on all fours, simply for the sake of it. Put all of this together, and one will get something that already looks far below Humanity. Add a long tail that I can easily move around my body and a pair of large bat-like wings, both of which are several meters in width and length, and I definitely resemble a highly deadly creature of the night, that no one in their right mind would ever want to pick a fight with. Now, some people might probably think that having such a mighty body would make my life seem like a child's play. They are all wrong. Dead wrong. Because nobody's perfect. That's just impossible. To be perfect, is to be without flaws. To be without flaws, is to be without weakness. To be without weakness, is like being all powerful, invulnerable, untouchable, and to be capable of protecting and saving the ones you truly care about without any sort of trouble, which is the one important task, that I have failed miserably at completing. Also, if I had been perfect, I would not have been hideous, I would not have been hated, and I certainly would not have been lost and alone outside somewhere in the wilderness, while those I had cared about were now dead and gone. Quite to the contray, I would have been beautiful, loved and still be living in my homevillage with my true friends and family. But sadly, my life was never that simple. It's still not, and there is nothing that I can do about it, like always. Just like any ordinary Human, I too, have my shortcomings to deal with. My first flaw is that I have an extreme fear of heights. Thus, I can't fly. I have never learned how to fly. Or even glide for that matter. I may have the potential to fly. I simply have not tested this possible potential out yet. My second flaw is that I can't speak. I can still make sounds, but none of them are like words that can be understood. As a result, I speak no verbal language of my own, but must instead rely on body-language to convey my feelings. I have my doubts that it will do me any good, however. There is nobody left to talk with anyway. My third flaw is that I know next to nothing about the outside world. The world outside my village. I don't even know how to survive on my own. Take the plants for example, should I find any. Which ones are edible and which ones are not? What if some of them are toxic and I eat one by accident? Then I will most likely either get very sick or die young. My life may be terrible, but I still don't want to die young. I'm not suicidal. I'd much rather survive and live on, if only for another day. Just the sheer fact that I'm still alive is a complete miracle in it's own right. My fourth and so far last flaw is perhaps also the most dangerous and disturbing of them all. Even now, a long time after when I first started traveling aimlessy on my own, the memories of the event are still somewhat hazy. To be truthful, I'm not sure whether I should call it a gift or a curse. For now, I will just call it a flaw. The flaw I'm refering to, is a flaw that causes widespread massdestruction and killing. I have no name for it, and I don't intend to give it one either, provided it never shows up again. The ability, if one could call it that, had brought me revenge and along with that, justice. However, it had also effectively destroyed the rest of everything that I had ever loved, which included both the forest surrounding my homevillage and the lake lying right beside it. The last things I remembered before the total destruction of the place in which I was born, was the look of cowardly horror on my childhood-tormentor's faces when they suddenly realized that they had gone too far in making me suffer simply for being different, the blinding light when justice and vengance awakened from their sleep to hum their long lost melody, and finally the intense sound of devastation, when my own wrath and grief became the broken song of darkened judgment. The sound that flew with the death and destruction, was akin to that of a massive thunderstorm, only much worse. Then, I left. There was nothing left for me to stay for. I don't even think I can ever return to my birthplace. Because it is all gone. Gone forever. Vanished. Destroyed. Where that had once been a large beautiful forest with both a lake and a village, there is now only a very barren and very lifeless landscape. And it was all caused at my hands. Those damned village-people, why did they have to make me so angry to actually do such a horrible thing? Had they just left me and my friends alone, then none of this would ever have happened! Why, oh, why? Please tell me, why did this have to happen? This makes no sense! No sense at all, I say! I breathe in deeply, trying to calm myself down. It really can't be helped. What has happened, has happened, and it can't be undone. I just have to move on with my life and live with it the best way that I can. Right now, I'm completely lost and don't have too much of a clue as to where I'm going. All I know is that I'm moving away from my former home. Is that a good thing, I wonder? Perhaps it is. There's nothing left for me to live on with in that place anymore. In doing so, however, I have also just recently found this large vegetation-covered field. I have told you quite alot about myself now. But are you still willing to hear the rest? Will you listen to my tale? ... Fine. I will finish the story. The field I'm standing in, is both lush and beautiful, as if nearly untouched. It's nowhere near so big and lively as the forest I used to live in and I honestly don't know if it will be enough to keep me alive, let alone sustain me. But it's better than nothing at all and for now it will just have to do, because there is no other options available. Hopefully, I won't be dead by morning. I'm just relieved that I have finally found a place with a tiny bit of life in it. I should mention this. It's evening, which means it will be dark soon. The Sun has already begun to set, enlighting the distant horizont in many different hues of red, yellow and pink. I barely notice it, though. I'm far too concerned about my own past and survival to even care about such petty matters. All it means to me is that one hour or two later, I will probably be forced to lie down on the ground and go to sleep. Tomorrow, I will be on the move again, per usual. Every now and then I can still feel some leftover anger and sadness swell up inside of me. The pain has not gone away yet, it seems. It's still haunting me like never before. And every single time, whenever I feel a stab of pain...I slowly forces myself to calm down yet once again. Because no matter how much it hurts... No matter how much it all aches on the inside... No matter how much I have been abused by the village-people... No matter how much I vividly remember the sight of my loved ones dead faces... No matter how much I want to let it all out, only so that I can scream, cry and tear just about everyone and everything in this horrible world apart to shreds until I drop dead...I simply cannot allow myself to lose control right now. I may be able to convince myself to weep and mourn on the inside and maybe even get away with a few quiet sobs and tears in order to let out some of the sadness. As for the anger, deep breathings, growls, hisses and whimpers will just have to do, but even they are being hold back and supressed. But I can't just rage on wildly and wage war on everything in my path like a mindless beast either. My bodily needs won't allow it. Why? Well, just look at me. My body is not in a very good condition right now. I'm starved, dehydrated and sleep-deprivated. Bones are clearly visible, my skin looks sickingely dry and heavy bags of sleep can be seen just below my eyes. The world is spinning around me in a constant blur. Many times, I stumble and even more often, I fall to the ground due to exhaustion, hitting my head and tasting dirt in the process. At this rate, I feel like that keeling over and dying can happen at any possible moment. One doesen't need to be very smart in order to figure out that being born unique isn't always such a great blessing, because if that was true, then I wouldn't be struggling for my own survival right now. Blessing, huh? Wrong. More like a damned curse, if you ask me. And yet, in spite of all this...I'm still alive. I'm still breathing and I'm still walking. Because whenever I fall to the ground, I simply rise back up again. I just keep spitting out and wiping off dirt and every single part of my body hurts like the worst kind of crap ever, especially my head. I honestly won't be surprised if I start bleeding soon, because that is only to be expected. It has been a slow, exhausting process wandering around in such a lifeless and arid landscape...painful even. But I'm still alive. I'm still awake and I'm still standing and walking. But does the fact that I'm still present among the living justify the untimely and reckless use of my powers? No, it doesen't. It never have and it never will. It's bad enough already that I destroyed an entire forest and a lake, as well as everything alive within them. I don't want to cause any more uneccessary death and destruction than that. Killing the ones who hurt me is fine, killing the ones who didn't, is not fine at all. Having found this precious little piece of land which consists of lush grass and beautiful flowers in many different shapes and colors is enough to make me hold back and show some restraint, too. A rare, slightly comforted smile suddenly appears on my face, surprising even myself. I had almost forgotten how beautiful such a place like this could be...and it's not even my home. Like I said before, this open field is nowhere close to be so big and lively as my birthplace used to be. But it's better than nothing and I have already taken a liking to it, if only a small one. There doesen't seem to be any Humans around, which must mean that I'm completely alone. I don't see or hear any sort of animals either, though. Nor do I see or hear any presence of water. But there has to be water hidden somewhere, otherwise no plants would have been growing here in the first place, right? This place could also, perhaps just for now, be my only hope for salvation. My only hope for survival. What good would there be in destroying it for no reason? For two weeks I have been traveling. For water I depended on rain. For food I had nothing, because there was absolutely nothing edible left after all the devastation that I had singlehandely caused. Predictably, I'm in a fairly bad shape as a result. Which is just another obviously good reason as to why I shouldn't let my emotions go wild and thus accidentally unleash my hidden inner powers on the world once more. The bottomline is that, if I were to allow my own fury to consume me again due to an act of bloodshed that was caused by someone else in the past - someone who are now all dead and gone - then I would most likely die from exhaustion. What little strength I have left at this present time, would quickly be wasted within minutes and with that, my will to live would also rapidly burn out, thus leaving no hope whatsoever for possible survival. The tiny bit of nature that surrounds me would definitely be torn apart as well. So horrible as my past may have been, I hold no desires to claim innocent life. The smile quickly fading, a loud growl emanates from the deepths of my chest, as I scowl in anger at the insane idea. Then, walking through the field, my mind lost in deep thought, I can't help, but think back at the very people whose fair share in causing all of this mayhem, I only remember far too well. In the end, they were the ones who made me feel so much unforgivable agony, it simply proved enough to awaken my inner fury and snap my mind into more than just two pieces. To harm, let alone murder someone who doesn't deserve to be harmed or murdered...that sounds like something these rotten village-people would do. If the dead could laugh, then I'm very sure my long-time tormentors would no doubt writhe in delight with the knowlegde that not only would I have died for nothing if I had used my powers now, I also wouldn't be much better than them. I can still remember that disgusting look of bloodlust and perversion that they all had on their faces, not too long before I finally killed them. Those wicked smiles when I realized too late that something was terribly wrong after I had hastily returned from a troubled walk down by the lake and that horrible laughter when they revealed without remorse what they had been doing while I was gone for one hour. Flashback (Third POV) She was walking in the forest again, as she had done so many countless of times before. This beautiful, wonderous, vibrant forest that surrounded her village and felt like a second home to her. She could hear the sounds of animals as they seemingly engaged in natural conversation with their fellow species. She then shifted her attention to the lake, watching the calm water surface with a look of remote bliss on her face. The forest was dense, allowing only little sunlight to reach the ground. Wherever and whenever the sunlight did shine through however, grass and flowers would often bloom plentifully. She sighed. This was usually where she would seek refuge whenever life at home became too harsh for her too handle. Which, truth be spoken, happened way too often for the young female's liking. But then again...since when did such cruelty ever become likeable? Lilith Ziquasol didn't want to accept such intolerant behavior. She never would. To do so, would take insanity to a whole new level. The wind blowed gently, causing the plantlife of the forest to sway along with it, as if in a silent melody. That, of course, did not mean it was cold. The Sun and the Summer were both at their highest and the sky was basically cloudless. So far as Lilith was concerned, the temperatures suited her just fine. The need for emotional comfort or even personal enjoyment was not the reason she was visiting this healthy paradise, however. Nope, today she was doing something entirely different. Today she had been sent out to gather food, water and herbs for her two accidentprone Human friends, as well as her sick maternal grandmother. Her friends had fallen down from a tall tree, while her grandmother was dealing with a bad fever. For some, this may have sounded hilarious. To Lilith, it was the dead serious truth and a very important responsbility...though if not somewhat of an chore too, really. But still...they were also her friends. And she just knew that they would do the same for her. She was convinced of it. They had already proven their trustworthiness by coming to her aid more than once. Surely, what should stop them from comitting yet another act of compassion for her sake in the future? Lilith's grateful answer to that question was ''Nothing. To do otherwise would defeat the purpose.'' Lilith was the daughter of the Chieftains and the grand-daughter of the Elders. She was also an only child. However, because of her less-than-pleasing inborn looks, she was more often than not subjected to the Human's intolerant prejudice. Her kindhearted grandparents would vehemently try their hardest to protect her from it, even going so far as to threaten the wrongdoers with severe punishment and placing Lilith as the future heir of village leadership at the inevitable expense of her mother and father. But given their old age and increasing lack of loyality from their own people, this did little good to stop the maltreatment of the darkwinged female. This was made all the much worse by the disgraceful, but sadly true fact, that even her own parents abused her with the same traitorius level of scorn. How ironic. They were her parents and were supposed to care about her as a result, not despise her. But alas, because she had been birthed into eksistence with this oh-so-ever-infamous body, which was cursed with eternal silence to booth, her mother and father had apparantly decided along with the entire village, that their first and only child was worthless and thus, expendable. Her grandparents on the other hand, her more distant relatives, instead choose to defend her, love her and truly appreciate her in the same way that any good family should be expected to do. The twisted irony of the situtation filled Lilith with an deepseething anger, as well as confusion. Yes. It seemed that everyone else at home utterly hated her presence with a flaming passion. "Hey, Lilith!" Well.'' She thought solemnly. ''Almost everyone. A tiny grateful smile appared on Lilith's face, as she turned her head in the direction of the friendly voice that had called out her name. She was not alone. Not entirely, at least. A young adult woman with brown hair, amber eyes and pale skin came running towards Lilith at full speed. She easily jumped over the fallen logs and dead branches and nimbly darted from side to side, effortlessy avoiding whatever obstacles that was in her path, including large rocks and bushes. Her body was toned from years of happily exercising in the forest. Lilith had to smile widely at this. Human or not Human, that girl was definitely in exellent shape. But better yet, this particular woman was also another true friend of hers. A very loyal friend, who had yet to betray or decieve her. The woman's name was Diana Shento and just like the Elders and a few others, she held nothing against Lilith's uniqueness. She had instead accepted the young female with wide open arms and even defended her from the ceaseless mockery, there was so often thrown in her way.